Chaper 6: Forward the Revolution
The wars with the Ottomans and the Company required the Republic to back off it’s timetable for expansion in order to consolidate, but the nation could ill-afford to remain idle: Afghanistan remained restive and the rest of the nation still suffered from anti-war riots. Although the army restored all but the still-defunct Army of Sind to full strength within a few years and held the peace until the population calmed, the conservative government could not survive another mass uprising. However, the Republic would need to first finish what it had begun.
In late November 1881 the Ottomans experienced a financial crisis so severe they were forced to accept foreign oversight of their treasury. A further blow was dealt 7 months later when, on June 26th 1882, Britain went to war with Egypt. The Ottomans still being unable to balance their own budget, let alone defend their satellite against the world’s foremost military power, declared themselves neutral, a severe humiliation for Ottoman prestige. Seizing the opportunity of both a distracted Britain and a severely weakened neighbor, the Republic declared war on the Ottomans once more on June 26th, having only received word that the British had gone to war with Egypt and assuming the Ottomans would also be invaded. The later revelation of their neutrality would be inconvenient but largely irrelevant to the end result. Within a month the Ottoman pocket in Basrah had collapsed, Egypt was a British satellite, and Persian armies were advancing on northern Iraq and attempting to join hands with the Sinai provinces. Unlike in the previous war, the Turks were no longer in a position to offer resistance. Within 6 months the front had advanced through Syria and Palestine. On January 27th 1883, Persian forces occupied Lebanon, which was annexed to the Republic 2 days later, ending the last traces of Ottoman hegemony in their southeast flank. Persia advanced quickly and occupied the entirety of the Empire’s asian territory. However, the Republic still lacked enough naval power to punch through the Ottoman navy, cross the Bosporous, and deliver the deathblow by occupying Istanbul itself. On December 28th, 1883, the war ended with the Ottomans surrendering the remainder of what Persia had sought to conquer the first time: Northern Iraq, the province of Al-Aqaba, the last Ottoman gulf port at Basrah, and the remains of their Arabian territories.
The wars had placed Persia much higher in the world: control of the Sinai Peninsula placed her astride the single most critical shipping channel on Earth and gave her control of the northern entrance to the Red Sea. With the European Great Powers carving up Egypt’s Red Sea coast, the Republic decided the next target would be the Horn of Africa, which would not only grant her some control over the sea’s southern straights but also provide an opening in which to participate in the unfolding Scramble for Africa. Majerteyn conveniently went bankrupt in February of 1884, giving the Republic the necessary pretext for invasion. After allowing enough time for regrouping and rebuilding following the Second Ottoman War, Persia declared war on Majerteyn on January 15th 1885. 5 months later they became the first overseas territory of the Persian Republic.
Despite these successes, one last major military challenge remained. Persia had always viewed the unoccupied regions in Semireche and Turkmenistan as it’s own territory, and intended to occupy them as soon as was possible. Unfortunately the Russians had other ideas. Persia had previously purchased territorial rights to the province of Taldyqorghan, but Semey now lay under Russian control. And they were rapidly occupying the entire state of Turkestan. If action was not taken before October 1887 they would gain control of the entire state. With relations rapidly deteriorating and the Russians now unwilling to back down in the face of what they viewed as ingratitude, Persia began preparations. Even with the advantage of greater military strength Russia would be a formidable foe: their troops were possessed of some of the most fanatical morale on earth, with them so heavily dug in along the border a trap would need to be set…
First, to provide further training to recently reinforced armies and demonstrate that Persia meant business, as well as to finalize consolidation of the Arabian Peninsula before the Company began to get ideas, war was declared on Oman, the last free state in Arabia, on August 1st, 1886. Persia’s armies performed admirably, and had the country wrapped up in 4 months. Oman ceased to exist on December 11th, 1886. The show of force, unfortunately, would prove unsuccessful in swaying Russia from their goals in Central Asia. Final attempts at a peaceful settlement from both sides failed, and on February 26th, 1887, seeing no other options remaining, Persia declared war on Russia.
Persian strategy was two pronged: in the east, the goal was to sweep across Russia’s claims and seize them, then either fall back and lure Russian troops into Persian territory and away from their positions, or invade Russia itself if the opportunity presented itself. The same doctrine held in the west with more emphasis on the latter strategy, although caution would need to be exercised until reserves could be deployed. Initially the Army of Afghanistan managed to seize Semey, allowing Persia to lay claim to Semireche, before invading Russia through Barnaul. The 3rd corps, an army maintained for internal defense in the east, slowly worked its way through Turkestan, while in the east the armies of Arabia, Punjab, and Persia lured Russian forces from the border into Ahar and Khvoy, opening gaps in the lines at Agdam and Erevan. As the Persians advanced into the Caucasus, the Russians became trapped in pockets in Erevan and Astara. Meanwhile Persia managed to not only hold in the east, but push slightly into Siberia and the provinces of Uralsk. The Caucasus pockets collapsed in early December 1887, and Persia continued to slowly but surely advance. By early 1888 both fronts had stalled, and though the Russians might have been able to push the Persians back the cost was judged to be too high, to say nothing of the humiliation that would come from an unlikely, but uncomfortably possible deeper Persian invasion should the Russian lines break. On March 21st, Russia sued for peace, surrendering the provinces of Astara, Agdam, Baku, and Erevan (which was a short time later exchanged for naxcivan) and recognizing Persia’s new borders in both the east and west. Persian tacticians had proved victorious and demonstrated what was once unthinkable: Russia could be defeated in a two-front war, once thought to be only Germany’s primary Achilles heel. And the standing Persian army emerged from the steppes not only victorious, but whole. The same could not be said of the Czar’s armies, which had suffered significant losses in the rapid Persian advance. For the moment, the Republic would face no threat from the north.
The Russo-Persian War on the eve of peace
However, there were still very serious problems to deal with. Several nearly consecutive wars had saddled Persia with an enormous debt that she was only very slowly paying off. But the population had reached the breaking point: exhausted with a government that plunged them into constant warfare, they had already begun to rise as the Russian campaign was waged. While the returning armies put down these revolts in short order, the passage of time had given the rabble other tools with which to oppose their governors. Socialism had already found a home in disenfranchised Punjab. Seeing a generation of uprisings attempting independence come to nothing, modern agitators decided to work within the system. In November, workers shut down the entire state, refusing to return to their posts until new, free, and fair elections were held. Not that any Persian election to this point had been obviously fraudulent, but the conservative party had been in power since the revolution and their grip on what was ostensibly a democratic nation had begun to chafe. The idea caught and within weeks stoppages had begun in Afghanistan, Sind, and Kashmir. By January 1889, with every major state striking and the economy rapidly collapsing, the conservatives relented and held an early general election. On October 2, 1889, the ruling Conservative Dastebandi-ye Padeshah suffered its first electoral defeat since the revolution at the hands of the Socialist Hezb-e Jamegaraye, running on a platform of full rights for all citizens of the Republic and keeping the nation strong but peaceful. Even as 1889 become 1890 the changes they would unleash upon Persia were already beginning, with once silent factories in the eastern states slowly but finally coming online, filled with workers from all of the republic's many tribes. It was a humble beginning to what was to come, and a sign of how far the nation had yet to go...
The Persian Republic in 1890